


solecism

by otoutouji



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, Hopeful implications though maybe, Hurt/No Comfort, Identity Issues, Introspection, Self-Hatred, So much angst, episode 43 spoilers, gross overuse of italics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 16:10:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13978752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/otoutouji/pseuds/otoutouji
Summary: Ryouken is the tender age of eight when he first hears the other children screaming in pain - watches them being starved, being hurt, being torn from their families. At this time he considers himself lucky because, despite everything, he at least still has his own family.--Ryouken is the tender age of eighteen when he holds his father’s hand one last time, just as he did when he was still a child.





	solecism

**Author's Note:**

> solecism (noun): a breach of good manners; a piece of incorrect behavior.

_Ryouken_ is the tender age of eight when he first hears the other children screaming in pain - watches them being starved, being hurt, being _torn from their families_. At this time he considers himself lucky because, despite everything, he at least still has his _own_ family.

 

His father, whom he loves dearly. Kyoko and Asou who, despite not being related to him by blood, both care for him as though he was their younger brother. Genome is a bit strange, he admits, but he doesn’t hate him either, he’s just not quite sure where he falls in this weird, patchwork little family of his - the eccentric uncle, perhaps. It may not be conventional, but it’s _his_ , and that’s all that matters.

 

Except it _isn’t_ really, not for long at least. There’s only so much he can see without starting to ask questions; questions that aren’t being answered with anything but terse looks and half-hearted deflections.

 

“ _You should be focusing on your studies_ ,” he hears, more than a few times. From Kyoko, kneeling down and ruffling his hair affectionately with a forced smile despite how tired she is. From Asou, expression stern and focused as he barely glances up from the charts he’s reading. From his father, most often. His dear father who hardly has the time anymore to spend with him, to reassure him, to give him any semblance of an explanation about what is going on.

 

He still loves him, in spite of this.

 

So he does as he’s told, returning to his room and burying himself in his books. It’s the only place he can find some solace from the screaming and crying and _everything_ anyways, so he _always_ does as he’s told.

 

He’s a good child. He hears that a lot, from his father and family and everyone around him. He’s quiet and respectful and listens well. A model student, his reports home always read - before he was pulled out of the system, at least.

 

Eventually he starts to wonder if the other children here are the same; if they are good and kind and smart and maybe _have families that love them somewhere too_. Maybe they aren’t though. Maybe they’re disobedient and callous and lonely and that’s why they’re here in the first place. His father couldn’t be so heartless as to tear them away from their families without good reason, right?

 

As the days turn into weeks turn into months, he isn’t so sure of that anymore.

 

He spends more time in his room than before, unprompted, and is done with asking questions he knows will go unanswered. He wakes up more often than not in a cold sweat, frantic _voices/crying/screaming/noise_ filling his head for long after the nightmares end.

 

He decides, eventually, that he has to do something about it.

 

When night time falls, instead of being the _good child_ like always, he is the _disobedient one_ , because in what way has being _good_ and following the rules served him thus far beyond lulling him into a painful sort of complacency where he feels useless and helpless and _all around_ _terrible_? He can’t stand the thought of anyone else having to suffer through something that _had to be unimaginably worse_ any longer.

 

So he sneaks through the halls, careful to watch for anyone that might turn him away, and makes his way to the only testing room he finds that’s empty - just in time to watch a child on the screen fall to the ground, trembling in pain. He’s not exactly sure what he was planning to do once he got here, but in that moment he does the first thing he can think of; he grabs a microphone sitting on the console and starts talking.

 

“ _Hey, you. Wake up._ ”

 

\---

 

 _Ryouken_ is the tender age of eight when he sees his father carted off in handcuffs, and he struggles not to cry, _not now_ , because it is his own fault that it happens.

 

He has spent the past few weeks intermittently talking to the same child - he never asks his name, never anything personal, and he doesn’t give his own information away either. He doesn’t want to be viewed as some sort of personal savior.

 

Just as a good child, perhaps.

 

But one night, when he sees the child stop moving, too tired to get back up, he _panics_. He _panics_ , he _calls for help_ , and now _everything is ruined_.

 

He regrets it immediately; he is a _bad child_ , and he knows this now. Any thoughts of _doing_ good, of _being_ good, are crushed the moment he sees his father being taken away, the pain in his eyes.

 

Over the next three years the only reprieve from his missing father is the company of Kyoko and Asou, who take him in. They’re still family, he supposes bleakly.

 

He isn’t given any answers, but he also doesn’t ask questions anymore either. He figures he’s better off not knowing, for now anyways.

 

\---

 

 _Ryouken_ is the precocious age of thirteen when he finally gets the answers he’s waited for. Sometimes he honestly wishes he had never asked in the first place, because maybe then he could’ve avoided facing the truth.

 

The truth, he thinks, is simply too much.

 

 _Kidnapping/experiments/artificial intelligence/free will/destroy the world_? _Who on earth would believe any of that without hesitation?_

 

He does, because it is his ever-cherished father that tells him so, that tells him what they must do to stop this. He tries to argue, tries to compromise, _there has to be some other way_ , he thinks. But eventually, he realizes how pointless it all is and relents to his father’s wishes.

 

He still loves him, in spite of this.

 

So he listens, he logs in, he loses himself.

 

\---

 

 _Revolver_ is the precocious age of thirteen when he sets out to destroy the Cyberse in his father’s stead. It does not go as planned, and one of the Ignis manages to escape, out of Hanoi’s grasp for the next five years

 

A failure again; a _bad child_.

 

\---

 

 _Revolver_ is the hardened age of eighteen when the Ignis reappears in LINK VRAINS. He does not hesitate now; he is not a child, hasn’t been for too long, maybe not since any of this started, he thinks in retrospect. He is ruthless and cold and can’t be weighed down any longer by his past - he can only repent in the present because at the end of the day, he figures it is his own fault everything happened the way it did.

 

He can’t bring himself to hate his father, in spite of this.

 

It really is his own fault for being a ~~_bad child_~~ \- no, just a _bad person_ at this point. Through and through, he can’t seem to find any other answer. He _is not_ good, _was never_ good, _cannot become_ good. This is the only explanation.

 

This is his penance.

 

The Ignis is tricky though, too good at evading capture; he realizes now how dangerous a sentient AI really can be. His father must’ve been right, _had been right all along_.

 

He was a fool for ever doubting him.

 

So instead of backing down, he ups the ante more than ever; if search and destroy won’t work, he figures destruction alone would be a suitable replacement. They don’t need to capture the Ignis - they just need to crush it. It should have been a simple solution, really.

 

It would have been, if not for the appearance of _Playmaker_.

 

 _Revolver_ doesn’t worry about him too much, not at first. He’s too focused on the Ignis, on fulfilling his father’s mission and saving the world. Any time he has outside of the network is spent at his father’s side, monitoring his condition. He doesn’t expect anything to change, but he can’t help but hold onto a shred of hope nonetheless.

 

 _It’s childish, really, and he’s not a child anymore_.

 

\---

 

 _Revolver_ is the hardened age of eighteen when he personally meets _Playmaker_ for the first time. He’s a formidable opponent, to say the least. He tears through Hanoi’s ranks, and eventually _Revolver_ finds no other solution but to duel _Playmaker_ himself, because at the end of the day he really is the only one who can fix the problems he’s created.

 

 _Penance_.

 

Once again, it does not go as planned. It is _undeniably_ his own fault this time; when _Playmaker_ forces himself up from the ground, teeth grit and resolve strengthened, _Ryouken_ thinks of that child from so long ago. He wonders, briefly, what has become of him.

 

When _Playmaker_ opens his mouth, starts speaking, a chill runs down his spine. _Ryouken_ knows the answer to his own question immediately.

 

 _Revolver_ , in the meanwhile, loses the duel. He loses his arm too, and _Ryouken swears he can feel the searing pain alongside him_ , but it must be a fluke in the system, sympathy pain at best.

 

 _Because Ryouken Kogami is not Revolver, and Revolver is not Ryouken Kogami_.

 

He’s long-since made this distinction, and life has been much easier ever since. _Revolver_ is the leader of the Knights of Hanoi; he is competent, he is brave, and above all else he is _strong_. _Ryouken_ , on the other hand, is a failure, a coward, a _weakling_. He feels bad sometimes, about shifting the consequences of his own shortcomings onto _Revolver_ , but he can’t help himself because _Ryouken Kogami_ barely exists anymore, not after all this time, and how can someone who isn’t even present repent for the sins they’ve committed? He’s an afterthought at best by now, even to ~~_his own father_~~ _Dr. Kogami_.

 

He still loves him, in spite of this.

 

That’s why, as _Dr. Kogami_ scolds _Revolver_ , _Ryouken_ silently apologizes to ~~_his father_~~ the both of them. He’s not sure how long it’s been since the father he loved, _who loved him_ , stopped existing outside of his memories, and he’s also not sure at what point he himself made the jarring transition from _innocent_ _boyhood_ to ~~_cyber terrorist_~~ _savior of humanity_.

 

 _Ryouken_ thinks back again to that incident ten years ago; he never wanted to be viewed as some sort of personal savior.

 

 _Just as a good child, perhaps_. It’s far too late for that, though.

 

\---

 

 ~~ _Ryouken_~~ _Revolver_ is the ~~_anxious_~~ _hardened_ age of eighteen when he watches the rest of his ~~_family_~~ _comrades_ fall, one by one, to the hands of their adversaries. ~~_Ryouken_ feels glad that _Revolver_ can’t cry for them, doesn’t have time to mourn them, because he’s doing enough of that on his own.~~

 

 _The plan must move forward_.

 

That’s what _Revolver_ keeps telling himself, even as he watches his _~~first friend~~ final_   _comrade_ , Spectre, meet his end against ~~_Yusaku Fujiki_~~ _Playmaker_. Despite it all, ~~_Ryouken_~~ ~~_Revolver_~~ ~~_Ryouken_~~ **_Revolver_** can’t help but feel guilty for the first time in as long as he can remember. He was responsible for them, he was supposed to _lead them to victory_ , and here they were, dropping left and right.

 

A failure again; maybe _Ryouken Kogami_ and _Revolver_ aren’t so different after all, they both figure with a resigned sigh. It’s too late to waste time worrying about the semantics of it all.

 

 _He’ll be dead too soon enough, just like the rest of them. That’s his penance_.

 

\---

 

 ~~ _Ryouken?_~~ ~~_Revolver?_~~ **_They_** are the ~~_anxious? hardened?_~~ **_confusing_** age of eighteen when **_they_** face off against ~~_Yusaku Fujiki? Playmaker?_~~ **_him_** again. It’s _dangerous_ and _idiotic_ and a _liability_ to be engaging in a Speed Duel with the Tower almost completed and the data storm so unpredictable, but neither of them can help themselves; not with the animosity that burns under their skin and the past that weighs down on their shoulders. In that sense, _Ryouken_ and _Revolver_ figure, **_they_** aren’t so different from ~~_Yusaku Fujiki? Playmaker?_~~ **_him_** after all.

 

Both are still little more than _children_ , condemned to bear the weight of their past alone, in some cheap, twisted imitation of Atlas. _Ryouken_ remembers reading about him once upon a time, when he was _young_ and _his father was around_ and things were _simpler_ , more so than he could ever dream about them being again.

 

_It’s pathetic really, that he could even think about hoping for much of anything anymore, not when he knows he’ll be dead before the hour is up._

 

\---

 

 ~~ _Ryouken?_~~ ~~_Revolver?_~~ ** _He_** is the _selfish_ age of eighteen when he makes another mistake - a _terrible_ one driven by his overbearing pride, and it costs him his father’s life for the second time.

 

All of his mistakes have been _selfish_ though, if he thinks back on it. He _panicked_ , he _called for help_ , _his father was taken away_ , _was effectively_ _killed all because of his own fear_. He didn’t take the destruction of the Cyberse as seriously as he should have at first, still held back by both his _youth_ and the _uncertainty_ that clenched at his _heart_ and _throat_ and culminated in an anxious downwards spiral as he began keeping track of his continued failures. _Playmaker’s_ first victory had been the most _selfish_ act to date, until now at least; with _Ryouken_ shaken by his realization that _Playmaker_ was ~~_Yusaku Fujiki_~~ _that child_ , _Revolver_ had lost his focus and…

 

He’s really an idiot, he thinks, if he’s seriously managed to convince himself that _Ryouken Kogami_ and _Revolver_ were two different entities all this time. For all his contempt of LINK VRAINS being disguised as a pervasive hatred with how easily _others_ can lie to one another, he’s been doing a terribly fantastic job of lying to _himself_ this whole time.

 

He realizes this too late, as _~~Dr. Kogami~~ _ _his father_ tells him for the final time -

 

“ _Ryouken_ ... _You were a great son._ ”

 

\---

 

 _Ryouken_ is the tender age of eighteen when he holds _his father’s_ hand one last time, just as he did when he was still a _child._

 

_Maybe he really is still a child._

 

 _What he wouldn’t give to just turn back time_.

 

He _can’t_ though, would _never_ be able to, and he’s _all too_ _painfully aware_ of this fact as he lets out a choked sob, _years of_ _anger and resentment and frustration - at himself, mostly - purging themselves from his trembling body in the form of tears_.

 

Whatever period of mourning he’s allowed is cut short by _their_ arrival. He doesn’t even have to turn around to know who it is - _Shoichi Kusanagi_ and ~~_Playmaker_~~ _Yusaku Fujiki_. _Ryouken_ doesn’t give them time to argue with him, to get angry. Maybe he should, because he knows they deserve to feel _infinitely_ more furious than he does about all of this, but he just can’t bring himself to.

 

Instead, he calmly explains everything.

 

Well, mostly everything. He leaves out his _crushing failures and selfishness and_ -

 

“ _In order to walk a new path, stop the Tower of Hanoi, Revolver!_ ”

 

It’s a foolish thought at best. He’s realized now that _Revolver_ was never anything but a self-made foil to his own disparaging mediocrity, and even if that wasn’t the case, it’s much too late for him to back out of this now.

 

Not after his ~~_comrades_~~ _family_ had given up their lives for this. Anything else would be another _selfish mistake_ , and he can't afford to make any more of those.

 

_“I kept wanting to save you."_

 

Despite his convictions, he’s nothing short of astonished to hear _Yusaku_ go on about how every one of his _failures_ had given ~~_his adversary_~~ ~~_that child_~~ **_him_** the strength to keep moving forward. For a moment, he feels like the tears might come back; he fights them off with a bitter retort.

 

“ _You have the wrong idea about me. I’m not a good person_.”

 

He _can’t_ be, not after everything he’s done. He was a _bad child_ that grew into a _bad person_. It is simply a fact, as indisputable as everything else that’d happened. Even dying alongside his ~~_comrades_~~ _family_ would be a gentle punishment for all the sins he’s committed - certainly not enough to be considered true penance.

 

He falters.

 

 _Dying would be… too easy?_ The thought leaves him anxious and unsettled. _But if he didn’t die, if the Tower wasn’t completed, wouldn’t all of the sacrifices up to this point be in vain?_

 

He suddenly isn't so sure anymore.

 

Ten years later, and his own resolve is finally shaken again. All because of _him_ \- all because of _Yusaku Fujiki_ , with his _genuine concern_ and _kind words_ and _perceptiveness_.

 

The _Ryouken_ of ten years ago was right to think the other children must have been the same as he was. At the very least, _Yusaku_ is, even after the hell he’s been through. _Ryouken_ can’t say the same of himself anymore. And to think that it was because of _his_ ~~_failures_~~ _support_ that _Yusaku_ had been able to _stay strong_ and _keep living_ , well that was just…  

 

He can’t accept _Yusaku’s_ proposition for salvation, not in _words_ at least. _Not now_. But instead of stalling for time, instead of arguing, instead of _anything else really_ , he lets himself make one final ~~_mistake?_~~ ~~_decision?_~~

 

“ _If you want to stop the Tower of Hanoi, there’s only one way - by defeating me!_ ”

 

For the first time in forever, _Ryouken_ isn’t really sure if he’s made a mistake or not in saying this - there is simply a choice he’s now aware of having. _Maybe good, maybe bad_ , but most likely somewhere in between. He can’t bring himself to ascribe it to the label of pure _selfishness_ , as much as he _yearns_ _to_ ; doing so would be the easy way out. It would be just as much of a cop out as _Revolver’s_ existence was, as much of one as simply laying down and resigning to death would be - there was no atonement to be found in doing so. It’s an uncertainty he hasn’t felt about his own decisions in a long time, not since he decided to talk to _~~that child~~ _ _Yusaku_ ten years ago.

 

 _Ryouken_ isn’t sure if he’s ready to make that choice for himself, so he leaves it up to _Yusaku_ instead. Maybe that’s the only genuinely _selfish_ part of it all, that he leaves the fate of _himself/his family/humanity_  in the hands of someone he barely knows. He isn’t sure yet whether he even _wants_ to win, for the sake of _his father’s_ _wishes_ , or lose, for the sake of _his own_ _redemption he doesn't even believe he deserves_. He can’t see the future, can’t see how the choices he makes now will impact the world from this moment going forward. He’s never been able to though, and maybe that’s the scariest part of it all - knowing that all of his ~~_mistakes_~~ _decisions_ have led him to this precarious situation now. Still, when he looks back at _Yusaku_ , he can’t help but think about whatever meager amount of explicit _good_ his decisions have caused as well - _he’s the reason Yusaku is standing here, he saved Yusaku’s life,_ ** _he did this_**.

 

_He hopes, as selfish as it may be, that maybe he can be saved too._

**Author's Note:**

> Let me just say I am having a... lot of feelings over episode 43 you guys. I haven't written a fic in six or seven years now, being held back by how anxious I was about my writing but man did this episode just have me real up in some feelings.
> 
> It was a real punch in the gut emotionally, and even though it was such a fulfilling moment to watch some of the most popular fan theories become canonized, all I could think about after it was over was "this child deserved so much better." I'm going to be crying about it for the next week or probably forever honestly, and if you'd like to keep up with that (and cry with me, maybe) you can find me on twitter [@fleshchildx](https://twitter.com/fleshchildx)
> 
> ((Btw I couldn't help myself throwing that little Atlas reference in there because of the visuals for Writing Life))
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> Edit: Changed Vyra and Faust's names to their actual IRL ones because I forgot we knew them whoops


End file.
